We believe the Kingdom of Heaven is here. This kingdom is with and for all people in every corner of the Earth. Jesus speaks of the Kingdom in parables, possibly because there is no other way to describe it to people. This film is meant to be a visual parable.
The concept for this film is abstract yet surprisingly literal. We compiled raw footage that I’ve shot all over the world to be used as lighting for the film via projectors. God is light, so we thought of no better visual than portraying images of this kingdom than with light. On the shoot day, we set up two projectors, one for a face light, the other for a backlight to paint students in the light of the kingdom. Both of these projectors looped video footage creating beautiful color and texture when lighting a subject.
These images were shot in places like Papua New Guinea, Zambia, Michigan, Haiti, Swaziland, Iceland, India, and Washington D.C. We wanted to represent people of all nations, as well as waterfalls, mountains, foliage, trees, and even a few red peppers. Much of this footage has appeared in films for NTS Camp in the past. For example, here’s a shot from our Radical Lives Film about Mallery Neptune at her primary school in Port Au Prince, Haiti, being projected.
Here is a behind the scenes shot from our trip to Papua New Guinea with Marilyn Laszlo used for the film shown at camp in 2014. This was the backlight projector casting a shadow on me and one of the camera rigs for the shoot.
Our theme design, created by Kaitlin Zylstra represents the often organic metaphors Jesus uses when speaking in parables to the public. Jesus talks about exponential growth starting at points as small as a mustard seed of this mysterious Kingdom. The geometry inspired by some of Kaitlyn’s other work represents the “already, not yet” concept of the Kingdom being here, but not fully here. God has big plans, and the geometry represents those plans for the future. We love this artwork and incorporated it throughout the film by physically projecting it on the students being filmed.
The parable we are telling is the Kingdom is here for all people; it is in you, and we are to be a reflection of that Kingdom light. This reflection should take place not only in our individual life but together as the corporate Church. We wanted to show that more can be reflected together than individually.
The dialogue is unaltered excerpts of Scripture where Jesus is describing the Kingdom, and this film is a trailer for the full-length experience which is NTS Camp 2015. Our dream is to portray the concept of the Kingdom Jesus describes. Camp will be compelling, artistic, creative, intellectually stimulating, and intentionally crafted from beginning to end. Oh, and it will be a blast.
Ryan Humm
Videographer & Co-Programmer
Never The Same
© 2015, Never The Same